Nuclear Waste

a gift for our great-great-great-great-great grandchildren

No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make safe and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages. To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilization could sustain itself on such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting the economical affairs of man as if people did not matter at all.
-- E. F. Schumacher “Small is Beautiful”

When nuclear weaponry and power reactors are finally abolished, the
legacy of nuclear wastes will remain a life-threatening problem. Preventing
these wastes from rendering the Earth uninhabitable will require an international
effort on the scale of the current nuclear arms race, except it would
focus people' energies for positive, not negative reasons. Here in the
U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that supposedly regulates
nuclear power, could be transformed into a Nuclear Waste Commission and
/ or made part a vastly increased Environmental Protection Agency. Effectively
dealing with this problem would probably require reversing the budgets
of the Pentagon and the EPA. This Commission would be responsible for
inventing a permanent solution to the nuclear waste problem and would
be prohibited from promoting any "Atoms for Peace" type program.
Regardless of one's feelings for or against nuclear technology, such a
Commission will be needed to protect future generations from the scourge
of nuclear wastes. The decision making process and priorities at EPA will
also have to be reformed, since many EPA administrators collaborate with
companies they supposedly regulate. Mohandas Gandhi was once asked what
he thought of "Western Civilization" and his reply was that
"it would be a good idea." Having a real Environmental Protection
Agency that phases out toxic pollution as part of the needed shift to
a sustainable society would be a good idea.

There have been intermittent suggestions that the EPA should be boosted
in bureaucratic importance, becoming a cabinet level agency. The mainstream
publication Science editorialized in 1990 that "EPA's change in status
[to a cabinet level agency] should be approved only on condition that
improvements in its procedures be made." (Science, February 16, 1990,
p. 777)

Nuclear production must be stopped to implement these changes. Amory
Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, warned in 1989 that
"Until we get the bombs out of DOE, we'll never be able to get them
to focus on the climate-related [environmental] problems."
quoted in Dick Russell, “Hothouse Politics of Greenhouse Effect,”
In These Times, February 25–21, 1989, p. 10

Admiral Hyman Rickover, the pioneer of the nuclear powered submarine
program (which served as a prototype of nuclear power reactors), eventually
had second thoughts. He told the Congress in 1982 that

"I think from a long-range standpoint--I'm talking about humanity--the
most important thing we could do is start by having an international meeting
where we first outlaw nuclear weapons and then we outlaw nuclear reactors,
too.
"Until about two billion years ago it was impossible to have any
life on Earth. That is, there was so much radiation on Earth you couldn't
have any life … Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount
of radiation on this planet and probably in the entire system became reduced.
That made it possible for some form of life to begin and it started in
the seas .... when we use nuclear weapons or nuclear power we are creating
something which nature has been eliminating. Now that is the philosophical
aspect, whether it's nuclear power or using radiation for medical purposes
or whatever. Of course, some radiation is not bad because it doesn't last
long or has little effect on the surroundings, but every time you produce
radiation, you produce something that has a certain half-life, in some
cases for billions of years. I think the human race is going to wreck
itself, and it's important that we get control of this horrible force
and try to eliminate it.”
from a hearing held in the Joint Economic Committee, January 28, 1982

Dr. Alice Stewart: "single-celled organisms could not exist until
background radiation fell to present levels millennia ago. And it requires
just as delicate an environment for us to survive. Yet today, in the arrogance
of humankind, we are raising the levels of background radiation and setting
back the evolutionary clock."